John McCain deems Rolling Stone cover 'stupid'

View full sizeFILE - In this March 6, 2013, file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gives a thumbs up as he emerges from a private dinner with President Barack Obama and Republican senators at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington. There were no breakthroughs predicted when Obama set out on his courtship of Congress. And thereâs no sign any have been achieved. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Senator John McCain took to CNN's airwaves to tell the world what he thought about the controversial Rolling Stone cover featuring the Boston Marathon bomber.

“I thought it was stupid,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I thought it was horrifying.”

“The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens,” the magazine said in a statement.

McCain says the cover was inappropriate.

"Rolling Stone probably got more publicity than it has in 20 years," he also told CNN.